Music, Food & More Music

Menu

Sports

After 14 years and wealth of success one could only dream of, Mal Moore officially stepped down today from his job as University of Alabama Athletics Director, citing “factors related to his health” as the main reason for his resignation.

The 73-year-old Moore, who played and coached for Paul ”Bear” Bryant” has been hospitalized at Duke University Medical Center since March 13 with pulmonary problems. This is the second time Moore has been hospitalized with health related problems over the past year.

He will now serve as a special assistant under UA President Judy Bonner.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – In light of the recent Sports Illustrated story that links the Alabama football team with the supplement company S.W.A.T.S (Solutions with Alternatives to Steroids), relative to the controversial supplement of deer antler spray, it brings up an interesting topic in terms of what exactly isillegal in sports and what shouldbe illegal.

Deer Antler spray contains the hormone IGF-1 (Insulin-like growth factor-1) which contains a hormone that helps aid in muscle-building and recovery. Chris Key, one of the owners of the company S.W.A.T.S, explains the supplement:

“You’re familiar with HGH, correct? It’s converted in the liver to IGF-1. IGF-1, or -insulin-like growth factor, is a natural, anabolic hormone that stimulates muscle growth. We have deer that we harvest out of New Zealand. Their antlers are the fastest-growing substance on planet Earth . . . because of the high concentration of IGF-1.”

Because deer antler spray contains IGF-1, it is illegal for pro and college athletes to use because it has been deemed a banned substance by both the NCAA and by every major pro league.

This is where the question of what is illegal and what should be illegal becomes an issue.

A new therapy called Regenokine, in which the patient’s own tissues are extracted, carefully manipulated, and then reintroduced to the body has become a very popular therapy for professional athletes.

Athletes can now treat their ailing joints with platelet rich plasma (PRP) therapy, in which blood is spun until it contains a high concentration of healing platelets, to concentrated bone marrow injections, dense with stem cells.

The procedure begins with the removal of a small cup of blood from a patient, which is then incubated at a slightly elevated temperature. (The goal is to give the blood a fever.) The liquid is then spun in a centrifuge until it’s separated into its constituent parts. The heavy red blood cells accumulate in the bottom layer, a layer of crimson crud at the bottom of the plastic tube. The relevant fluid is the middle yellowish layer — it looks like viscous urine — which is dense with agents that, at least in theory, can accelerate the natural healing mechanisms of the body.

According to a report by Grantland.com, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez and other athletes travel to Germany for their biologic treatments that involves a vague FDA regulation that mandates that all human tissues (such as blood and bone marrow) can only be “minimally manipulated,” or else they are classified as a drug and subject to much stricter governmental regulations. The problem, of course, is figuring out what “minimal” means in the context of biologics. Can the blood be heated to a higher temperature, as with Regenokine? Spun in a centrifuge? Can certain proteins be filtered out? Nobody knows the answer to these questions, and most American doctors are unwilling to risk the ire of regulators.

Furthermore, there are no rules in the NBA, MLB or NFL that disallows such measures.

Point being, why is IGF-1 illegal when platelet rich plasma therapy is legal? That’s not to say IGF-1 should be legal, but why is PRP therapy legal?

Over the summer, The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith calling on them to begin testing for human growth hormone (HGH).

Part of the letter stated:

Despite occasional suggestions in the media that progress is being made, the optimistic reports are difficult to believe when the Players Association continues to publicly challenge the efficacy of the test itself. These challenges are inexplicable because the blood test for HGH has been in use for almost a decade. Today it is used by numerous domestic and international leagues and sports associations, including the Olympic Games and Major League Baseball.

Without HGH testing, the performance enchanting drug provisions in your collective bargaining agreement will not be able to effectively deter the use of this drug. And this failure sends a terrible message to young athletes and fans that player safety and a level playing field are not priorities.

Ultimately, how can one regulate if a pro athlete is taking a banned substance if there is no testing for the banned substance in the first place? Plus, why are some substances, therapies and treatments deemed illegal, while others are perfectly fine?

The problem will only continue until there is Olympic-style testing in every league for every type of drug or supplement. Moreover, PRP therapy and newfound “biologics” ultimately may have their place. But further testing should be done first, while procedures such as these should be regulated by an independent committee.

Until then, stories like these will continue to surface and athletes will be pushing their bodies to the limit to gain the smallest of edges in performance. Let’s hope this ends sooner rather than later.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – In light of the recent Manti Te’o hoax, more and more people have become readily familiar with the term “catfishing”. In this case, catfishing as it applies to the internet, not the actual fish itself.

In the story Layden not only questions the matter of the Te’o story, but he also questions his own work – examining past stories and wondering if he too fell under the guise of deception that Te’o executed so perfectly in telling his “story”

In recent days I began looking back — very randomly — through some of my own work.

In a 2004 story I wrote about Villanova’s NCAA basketball victory over Georgetown 19 years earlier, there is a dense paragraph about Gary McLain, Villanova’s point guard in that game. The paragraph contains 15 facts about McLain, who had not been interviewed by anybody for many years. Of those 15, many were confirmable and confirmed — that McLain “works for a company that places doctors in temporary positions,” and that his daughter was 11 years old. Other facts were more slippery — “He says he has lapsed into drug and alcohol uses “a couple of times,” and that he is currently not using — and almost impossible to nail down solidly. (The qualifier “He says,” is a great and useful crutch in these situations, as in “The quarterback says he has a 3.79 GPA.” But I can’t help but wonder if the reader flies over the qualifier and accepts the information as fact.).

In a 2011 feature on Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers, I wrote that Rodgers “took his 1,310 SAT to Butte [college],” because Rodgers told me he scored 1,310 on the SAT. I never saw Rodgers’s test results; it seems unlikely he still has them. I was confident that Rodgers was telling the truth, but the reality is that I can’t know for sure. Is that detail necessary to establish that a clearly smart guy is quantifiably smart?

Even an award-winning journalist like Layden, who has the respect of his his peers and his audience, can’t help but wonder if he was led to believe one thing, when in fact it wasn’t the exact truth.

This doesn’t just apply strictly to sports either.

The trust a journalist puts in those they interview has to be complete, or else stories would never get finished due to endless fact-checking. But at the same time, one must apply due diligence and make sure their story is 100% accurate.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – According to an explosive report by the website Deadspin.com, the girlfriend of Notre Dame linebacker, and Heisman Trophy runner-up, Mant Te’o did not exist.

Te’o, who claimed for months his girlfriend Lennay Kekua had died of leukemia, was either the victim of an elaborate hoax or part of a very elaborate lie. Trying to figure out which scenario actually occurred depends on who you’re willing to believe.

Te’o has not spoken on the matter yet, issuing a press release on Wednesday that said he was the victim of a hoax. Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbick, who spoke to the media less than four hours after the initial Deadspin report, backed Te’o’s comments as well, saying it was all part of an “elaborate hoax”.

“They started out as just friends. Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple.”

Furthermore, Te’o who described Kekua in such ways as this…

“Lennay was so special. Her relationship with the heavenly father was so strong. She’s so humble, hard working. And her main thing was her family. Her family was everything to her. As long as she took care of her family. And as long as she knew that her relationship with our heavenly father was strong, she had faith that everyone would work out. With her it was just always loving God and her family. I was just blessed to be part of that.”

…was unable to remember what year she graduated from college, as well as what she was studying:

“She graduated in 2011 or 2010.”

“Her major was in English and something. I’ll double check.”

All in all the story still has much to be told. Te’o must speak on the matter soon as to avoid further embarrassment, as well avoiding the huge public relations hit that could affect his NFL draft status in April. To be continued…